NBA Legend Shaquille O’Neal Bribed His Son and His Teammates at Hooters After Losing a Big Game Just to Teach Them a Lesson: “They Call Me Phil Jackson of the Little League”

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal played a huge part in his son Shareef O’Neal’s basketball career. The Big Diesel coached his son throughout his childhood. In fact, Shaq coaches all of his children. He even coached Shareef’s AAU teams. According to Shareef, Shaq pushes him harder every day to get better.

He once claimed that his father could be a coach in the NBA if he wanted to. However, the 4-time NBA champion once had to bribe his son Shareef and his teammates after losing a big game.

Shaq has admitted that his father taught him to play every sport he loves like baseball, football, and basketball. He has also said that his father coached his team when he was younger. When Shaq was 10, their team made the finals of a championship game. The Los Angeles Lakers legend said that his father usually played the weaker players during the end of the game.

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However, in the championship game, he decided to play them early, and the better players like Shaq later. As a result, they lost the championship. Then his father taught him the lesson that everything is not about him all the time and that others who worked as hard as he did also deserve a chance.

Shaquille O’Neal coaching his son’s team

The ‘Big Diesel’ tried to teach the same lesson to his son Shareef O’Neal and his team during a championship game. As it turns out, Shaq applied his father’s logic and his son’s team lost. After that, Shaq had to explain the reason behind such a decision. However, they were not pleased with the outcome. Therefore, the Big Aristotle had to bribe them by taking them to Hooters.

“It’s a championship game. We are undefeated. By the way, they call me the Phil Jackson of  little league,” Shaq revealed. “So we are undefeated and we get into the championship game. And you know the guys that don’t really play, I put them in the game and we lose the game by 2.”

“And the guys were very upset and I told them the story. To make them not be mad at me I had to take them to Hooters,” he added.

Shaquille O’Neal was once the special guest on Oprah’s Master Class. During the show, O’Neal talked about a lot of things including his path to the NBA, his career, his life, etc. When talking about his childhood, he talked about the father figure in his life.

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His biological father was not around. But his stepdad Phillip A Harrison became the father figure he needed. O’Neal still refers to him as his father.